A New Site

With northerly winds forecasted for the remainder of the bank holiday weekend I decided to try Firle for the first time. I expected a busy day as the forecasted wind suggested enough wind for hang gliders but not too much for the paragliders. On arrival it was confirmed, the sky was littered with paragliders, model aircraft and a lone hang glider pilot.

When I had rigged, more hang gliders were aloft and more arrived. I expected some of the Suffolk gang to come down too - it looked to be a great day! After my usual faffing that included mounting my video camera to the keel, I was off to launch. Jim kindly assisted and I was quickly in the air. Conditions were scratchy and although Firle looked like a big site, it didn't feel that way. Firle is more of a series of bowls and as I found out, in weak conditions, it's all too easy to temporarily get trapped in one! Still, it added to the challenge of staying up. So, for the first 20 minutes I scratched around, not really getting more than 100 feet above take-off.

I'm always nervous about top landings and Firle being a new site only added to that. The top landing field at Firle is huge and mostly obstruction free; all I needed was enough height, say 150 feet to attempt one. Eventually, I was successful and gained the required height and happily touched down on top of the hill. Firle really is a lovely site!

The boys from Suffolk had now arrived [Paul L., Keith M. and Steve B.], so I returned a debt of gratitude and welcomed them to Firle and gave them a brief of the site. This mostly revolved around - keep your eyes open; the Southern sites get very busy! With that, I was clipped back into my glider and headed back up in the air for another 20 minutes.

After I had assisted others to launch, I opted to pass on the flying for a while as the air had become very busy. Keith, who was airborne, had come to a similar conclusion and headed for the safety of the bottom landing field.

Eventually, the airspace thinned as the wind picked up, and I was up for my third and final flight of the day. I briefly managed to exploit a small thermal for a couple of 360's before my final top landing. This landing was a little further back than the earlier ones and as expected, in the last 40 feet I dropped like a stone but with a gentle landing; it’s always a good idea to carry to extra airspeed when descending through a wind gradient!